E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

The other day I spent some time interviewing people in one company about their process. I could tell that I was out of practice as I fumbled a lot more than I remember doing when I did it on a more regular basis. Fortunately, I had a great coworker with me, who encouraged me and shared some tips which I will combine with some things that I have learned to use in the past and have failed to do in this instance.

1. Do not be in a hurry. Let people tell their story. Do not fill in the blanks but ask questions.

2. Show them you care. Show them that this will help them with their struggles.

3. New one to me, but a very important one: Do not ask Why, but rather “What makes it so” or “What has caused it to be this way” or “How did this practice get started”. The reason being that WHY is an emotionally loaded question that people can take to mean “What’s wrong with you?”, while WHAT, WHEN or HOW are factual questions that allows people to focus on extrinsic reasons rather than thinking of a question as a personal attack.

4. Use a list of questions, so that you don’t miss the important ones.

5. Make your assumptions explicit, so that if they are not right, people can challenge them.

Let me know if you have some good interviewing tips that you would suggest.